Dear angel of mine
by Mantyke30
Summary: Asahi may have given up on volleyball and himself, but the guardian of karasuno has yet to give up on him. One shot. Sad Fluff.


AU: Canon Verse

Prompt: "Things you don't like about yourself that I do"

Another one shot of potential events during the days when Asahi refuses to play volleyball for the team after they lost to Date Tech. Hope you guys enjoy :3

* * *

 **Dear angel of mine**

* * *

Fingers twitch on the keypad as he stares at his phone next to his pillow, lying on his side and glasses askew on his face. He had done some reading lately however his mind always wanders back to one person, making him lose his focus.

Should he call him? Or send a message? Text seems to have fewer consequences. He won't be able to hear his voice crack or him stuttering his half-baked speech. But then what would he say? Would he even read it? Delete it right away? Should he even do anything?

He groans, rubbing his face with his hand in frustration. He shouldn't be worrying about this. Nishinoya probably has his reasons, and they would be far more sensible than his. As for him…he's just so sick of being useless and a burden to the team. He had to leave.

 _No…I'm just running away._

His hand moves to clutch the sheets, gritting his teeth in self-loathing. God he's pathetic. His bed should just end his misery and swallow him whole like he was some big salty pound of meat with a bad after taste.

He has no time for this. All he has to do is get Noya back on the team then he could rest a bit easier knowing he is out there… supporting the people who actually need him. Damn maybe he should take a stroll. Clear his mind from all of this even just for a short while.

Asahi pushes himself up from the bed, getting the hair tie on the side table and tying his hair in a messy bun. He stands to get a good look at his attire, eyeing the comfy grey sweats and the giant light yellow sweater on his person. He grunts… it was a lazy day after all and a chilly one at that.

Stuffing his phone in his pocket, he organizes his things on his study table neatly and sets his reading glasses down on the side table, heading downstairs for the front door and opening it just to come face to face with the person that has been making his head spin.

"N-Nishinoya…"

"A-Asahi…"

Noya's arm is raised, hand closed into a fist as if he is about to knock before he got there. It was distinctly white, perhaps from being held too tightly. He brings it back to scratch the back of his head, looking away. "A-Are you heading out somewhere?" he asks.

"I was about to go for a walk… but if you need anything I don't mind postponing it for later…" Asahi tells him. "D-Do you want to come in?"

Noya swallows then nods, walking into the small house when Asahi gestures for him to enter after moving aside. He removes the brown scarf and matching coat he has on and drops his things on a nearby chair, waiting for Asahi to close the door. They both sit on the living room couch at the same time, a bit of a distance between them.

The tension is so thick that it must be even harder to say something than spike a ball through Datekou's iron wall. He licked his lips, feeling them run dry and his eyes darts around the walls and furniture. The silence is deafening and he feels the room growing colder by a few degrees even with the heater on. His fingers fiddle with the hem of his sweater, one of his legs shakes from his anxiety and shaking the couch along with it.

"Asahi?" Noya questions, eyebrows furrowing in concern. "You're doing it again…"

"H-huh?"

"You're shaking." He confirms, worry in his voice.

Asahi chuckles nervously, straightening himself and forcing his body to calm down a little, taking in deep even breaths. His nerves were shot, rubbing his arm to stop the goose bumps crawling through his skin. Ah but he had to relax or this would be more difficult than it should be… whatever this is. Noya kicks off his shoes and pulls his legs close with his arms as he squirms sideways to face him, waiting patiently until the other tells him he's fine.

"About what you said earlier…"Noya starts, digging his toes into the plush sofa. "I wanted to talk to you about…about 'it'…"

Asahi flinches at the mention of "it," given there isn't anything else they are having problems with besides him practically ditching volleyball practice entirely after their loss against Datekou while he wallowed in his insecurities. That and the fight he had with Noya is making things extremely uncomfortable.

"I'm not going to pester you to come back…I just want to talk." He states, scooting closer to him. "You know…hear your side."

Asahi manages a chuckle, finally allowing himself to look at him. "Since when did you get this serious, Noya?" he quips. "Normally you'd have given me some form of pep talk right about now since you've been really good at keeping the team's morale up."

Noya shrugs, changing his position by crossing his legs. "I can be serious if I want to. The pep talk can wait."

He nods in understanding, leaning back on the couch and turns his body so he faces him too. "A-Anyway…"

"Why did you ditch practice?" he questions, his eyes soft and sad. "The guys from the team were getting worried about you despite Suga-san telling us you were okay; though you've been avoiding him. Don't deny it. Even if you were going through some kind of hiatus, at least let us know. We don't cross paths along the hallway and rarely do I see you during breaks so I finally decided that I should just go and visit you…"

Asahi lowers his head, not really knowing what to say so he listens first and in turn Noya curls up as if comforting himself. "I want you to tell me what's on your mind… without yelling or screaming at each other… or clawing at each other's shirts and glaring daggers with our eyes. No one's watching… so everything you say gets to stay between us. I won't get mad or cut you off until you're done. Then it's my turn. Can we do that?"

Asahi didn't want to talk. Talking about his insecurities is like accepting that there is a problem. That it was wrong for him to leave in the first place. That the words he hears from other people are true. He also had to choose the right words, preferably the ones that would hurt the least, and watch the tone of his voice so it won't break. He didn't want to… but he has to.

A shift on the sofa tells him Noya moved even closer to him, craning his head to peer at him, eyes practically begging for him to say yes. He sighs, looking up and slowly nodding his head. "…Okay…." He mumbles.

Noya cracks a small smile, eyes watching him intently and rearing to listen to every word he'd say. He almost looks like his old self. Meanwhile Asahi fiddles with is sweater again, thinking hard where to begin.

He repeats what he told Noya in the equipment closet, that day when his emotions were in turmoil and he had no way of coping for the loss but to blame himself. He had seen how the libero worked so hard to keep the ball in play and everyone moving to strike back. And he really did try to keep pushing himself to break through the wall. But every time he was blocked a little piece of him crumbles away until there was only enough of his spirit to feel that he had failed them as the final whistle blew. He was the ace and all he got them were a few points in, never enough to catch up or turn the tables around.

Those negative feelings came all the way back with them to Karasuno and he grew frustrated, wondering why no one was berating him and affirming the destructive thoughts swirling in his head. He can't be the only one thinking them, a few people in the audience talk about him behind his back when they were there, clearly within earshot. They weren't even sugarcoating anything.

Asahi was weak willed to begin with, neurotic and incapable of cheering himself up on his own. And even if Daichi kept telling him to not mind the failure of his spikes and the promise of getting it right next time, the gap between their scores says enough about his capabilities of being the ace.

His hands grip his knees, trembling as he lets his emotions take control and slowly growing frustrated with himself again. He observes Noya's eyes throughout the duration of his retelling, inwardly cringing when he sees his eyes briefly flare up when he says something bad about himself, which was about eighty percent of the time. "Regardless of how tall I am or how hard I can spike… people still see me as a weak link. I tried to tune out all those criticisms and believe in the encouragement you were all telling me…But I-"

"I couldn't do it. I couldn't ignore the pain of letting people down and seeing your faces in a losing battle. We were a team but I couldn't deliver and act like I deserve to be called the ace. I hate keeping your hopes up for nothing, I hate hearing Suga apologize as if his tosses were wrong, I hate how my presence makes people think I'm someone to watch out for when there's nothing much to expect from a guy like me. I hate seeing you on the floor when you couldn't reach the ball in time after my spike is blocked. I'm not supposed to be looking down at anyone like that… they should be doing that to me. I'm taller than you, but I wish I was shorter, maybe even benched and have someone else out there giving our opponent a run for their lives and a reason to be nervous. But I'm not…I'm not any of what I should be. It's not worth having me on the team."

He stops there, breathing heavily after spilling most of his heart out a hundred miles a minute. His throat feels dry, lips chapped and it is incredibly hard to swallow all of a sudden. God he doesn't want to look at Noya now after showing him just how pathetic he is. This couch should lose a spring and catapult him through the roof and into outer space.

He feels the couch dip next to him, throwing a nervous glance at the shorter boy. He's smiling. The nut job is smiling.

"Is there anything else you wanna add?" he asks, smiling softly at him while he rubs Asahi's arm comfortingly. The taller of the two shakes his head, tired from admitting nearly everything he had to say.

"Good… now turn around."

"What?"

Nishinoya huffs. "I said turn around, back towards me."

Asahi blinks and cautiously turns, his legs dangling from the arm of the couch and feeling awfully unsettled. Nishinoya grins and kneels; grabbing the messy bun and tugging it lose. Asahi winces while he roughly tries to fix it, fumbling with his hair and snapping the hair tie on his head several times. He complains at the lack of gentleness to it, pouting when Noya inspects his finished work by making him face him. "There… man that was distracting me."

He gives him a look that begs him to say what was going on, only to be waved away. "Your hair was messy so I fix it for you. Ah, so now it's my turn to speak and so same rules apply; you can't interrupt me or cut me off or go against what I'm going to say. I'm only saying this once so listen good… or well I plan to repeat myself anyway until I get this drilled into your head."

He sits back and stares at him directly in his eyes, daring him to even try and look away. Asahi doesn't, swallowing thickly as he mentally prepares himself for an ear lashing.

"You… hate a lot of stuff about yourself, huh?" he asks, Noya tilting his head to the side like a curious puppy. Asahi bit his lip and nods, expecting to be yelled at. He's definitely going to get yelled at and smacked. Probably smacked… hard.

Noya laughs, running a hand through his hair. "Funny because a lot of things you said, if not all, are things I absolutely like about you."

…. Wait what?

"E-Excuse me?" Asahi stutters, looking at him dumbfounded.

He grins, flopping back on the couch with a soft poof and folding his hands behind his head so that he could still look at him. "You heard me… I love all that stuff about you."

He looks up at the ceiling, eyes half lidded and a smile on his lips. "I like how you scare the crap out of people when they see how tall you are and you can reach up to get things people like me with below average height can't get to. You look like a damn mountain that needs to be scaled and conquered but you're not one to make things easy for people to do that. I like how you prove bullies wrong when you're serious about something and you're suddenly not as weak as others think. I absolutely love it when you call for a toss and we see how much Suga trusts you as he sends you a high toss that's slightly away from the net, just the way you like it. Even more so when you do it repeatedly until you get it right."

"You look down on people not because you see yourself as high and mighty but because you want to check if we're okay and let us know you're paying attention when we talk. And if you think about it, we always have to look up just to talk to you. It's practice to keep our chin up even though things aren't looking too good."

Asahi raises an eyebrow at him, his lips quirking into a side smile. He so made that one up.

Noya sticks his tongue out at him playfully as he sat up, wagging a scolding finger at him. "As I was saying, it's difficult not to feel bad when you see that your tactics aren't as effective as it should be. That what your best at isn't making a dent on narrowing the gap between our scores with us on the losing end. But it's not just you. Everyone felt the pressure. I'm supposed to make sure the ball doesn't touch the floor. Yours is to spike through the opponent's defenses. We both fell short on that and the others were aware of their shortcomings too. That's why I didn't want you to keep blaming yourself because we all have a fault in losing to Datekou."

"You wanted someone to berate you but who am I to do that. So I got angry and I broke a mop that I should probably pay for and you…you left. I tried to talk to you but I ended up getting suspended and well you know the rest…"

Asahi frowns as Noya lowers his head, getting an urge to pet his hair or something as a silent apology of sorts. But the other looks back up right away with a radiant grin on his face, thumping his chest in a manly gesture. "But I decided it wasn't so bad. I continued to train and still am until now. I can't be the Guardian of Karasuno if I can't even get a ball of compressed air back up and ready to be spiked again, now would I? I'll show you my awesome collection of bruises later I'm proud of every one of them."

He leans in closer to Asahi, poking his chest. "But you know what really gets me going while being called a guardian? It gives me that feeling that a short guy like me can be depended on by tall guys like you."

He flicks Asahi's forehead, earning him a whine of protest. Noya merely laughs it off, leaning his shoulder against his. "To me it's like watching an adolescent crow that has this amazing wingspan and speed being very afraid to try and fly again after a bad landing. I'd be the wind that helps it kick off from the nest and keeps it up there, bringing it where it wants to go."

"You see Asahi, you're cool in a lot of ways but you need someone to remind you of that every now and again. And that's the Guardian's job, watching you do whatever you want but when you stumble I'll be there in a snap. If not then we'd be both on the floor and learning from our mistakes. You may not see it but you give me purpose, you know? I gotta stick around and keep an eye on you guys, especially you. Well that's what I think. So don't be too hard on yourself big guy."

Asahi looks at him quietly, soaking up everything he said. It sounds surreal for someone like him to mean that much to someone else, much less give him purpose; and it takes a while to wrap his head around it. Meanwhile Noya feels his cheeks grow warm at the silence, thinking he must have said way too much that he short circuited Asahi's brain, even for him. He sighs, standing and stretching his arms a bit, catching his friend's attention with a soft kick to the leg after what seems like an eternity.

"I think I'm gonna go ahead. We've both said what we want to say today and we might need some time to think things through…" he tells him, slipping into his coat and wrapping the scarf around his neck again. He smiles at Asahi, a genuine one without a trace of regret. "I'll see you in school then?"

He nods, a little too eager while he spaces out, making Noya laugh again.

"I suggest you take that walk… it's not dark out yet and it might do you good." he adds, waving before letting himself out.

Asahi waits till the doors close before lying down on the couch fully, staring at the ceiling and thinking.

Nishinoya Yu, a guy who's three fourths his height with an amplifier for a mouth. Short for an average volleyball player but has the skills to overtake plenty of regulars. Picks his schools depending on their uniforms and can receive just about anything on the court.

More importantly, he was someone who watches Asahi's back and would be there when he stumbles.

A small smile appears on his lips, eyes crinkling in amusement.

So that's what a guardian angel in the flesh looks like.


End file.
